Sleeping Under the Stars - Thank You my friends

Happy Thanksgiving! I wish you all a wonderful day enjoying it with family and friends.

Today is the perfect day for this particular post. There is so much to be thankful for but today I want to say THANK YOU to all my quilting friends on the HGTV Quilting Board for making me the most beautiful quilt - one that I will cherish always as much as your friendship. Over the past 5 years I have met all but 3 of the ladies who were a part of making this quilt - quite a big deal when you think we all met as cyber friends and we all live all across the USA.

As many of you know, last April New England was hit with some major rain storms. It was a horrendous time for me as my husband had just left for a 2 week trip to Europe when our basement began to flood. I was home alone with water pouring in nonstop. I can't even begin to tell you how many buckets of water I bailed and how I was screaming over being sleep deprived. Over the next month Rob and I dealt with water, water, water everywhere! While I was busy bailing water, crying and screaming that my body ached, my friends were busy putting together a quilt for me to cheer me up.

Last week my friend dear friend Elaine (Quiltingnewbie), who spear headed putting this quilt together, presented me with the most beautiful quilt. The quilt is made up of Friendship Star blocks both small and large collected from each of 50 ladies and sewn together by Elaine. Elaine did an incredible job of piecing the quilt together using various shades of blue so that all the Stars blended together. The quilt is queen size so you can imagine how much she must have loved sewing the binding on LOL! The beautiful quilting was done by Thearica ( Pigtalesandquilts ) who does the most incredible machine quilting.

My beautiful quilt fits in perfectly with my BLUE bedroom and I can now officially say "I sleep under the stars" I am overwhelmed with the love and friendship that was put into making this quilt for me and Thank You all from the bottom of my heart. Sending big hugs to all of you - I love you my sisters, my friends.

The back:

While laying under my quilt the first night, I looked around my room and realized... WOW! I love the color Blue.... and WOW! Look at all of the things in my room that my friends have made me over the years. The 3 Kimono wallhangings in the first picture were made by my friends Karen (Daisy The Chocolate Mouse) ) and Elaine (Quiltingnewbie).

This beautiful porcelain figurine was sent to me by Thearica (Quiltaholic) last summer - she said it reminded her of me. She is gorgeous and a treasure for always.

A beautiful Crazy Quilted Journal was made for me by my wonderful friend Carolyn (Dec Painter). No, No Carolyn, I have to disagree... YOU are the Queen of everything!

This gorgeous Crazy Quilt Block was made by Tammy (Ms Bananas). I just had to make it into a pillow.

My beautiful Crazy Quilt tin was made by Karen (KMouse) - she stitiched an "N" in beads on it and knowing how much I love mermaids, she filled it with fabulous little mermaid cabachons.

And this beautiful little disk was embellished for me by my good friend Ely. Love it!

I guess you could say I love the color blue but more importantly, I love my friends who have showered me with gifts they've made especially for me. Ya'll are wonderufl and I'm so grateful that you are a part of my life.

A few of my Favorite Things

How many times have you created something you love, turned around and gave it away and then said to yourself " Dang! I wish I had kept that for myself? Over the years I have made everything from mosaic picture frames and mirrors, quilts, CQ purses, Cross stitch designs etc and always ended up giving them away as gifts... happily of course but if you are like me, there are just some things that your create that you can't give up. I thought I would share a few of my favorite things that I've been selfish enough to keep for myself. One of my very favorite Crazy Quilt hearts was just made a couple months ago. I call her my "Little Purple Girl" Surprised that she's not blue?? Well I thought I would test the waters with a new color and I'm glad I did as I just love her.


Another one of my favorites it one that I call "Shy little Girl" I'm not quite sure where the inspiration came from for me to make this CQ Heart... maybe I was feeling a little shy that day ? I doubt it - no one has ever accused me of being shy.



I made these little 3x3 CQ pictures as part of an experiment. I had bought a variety of new fabrics and wanted to see what they would look like layered. I was going for a nautical theme so embellished them with various pearls, glass fish, seashells and pretty threads.

I have to admit, out of all the items I have ever made, this quilt is my absolute favorite. It is made up of about 17 different Asian Fabrics and represents the love that my husband and I have for the ocean. My husband Rob has a beautiful sailboat that when sailing brings such a wonderful peace within. I wanted this quilt to represent every aspect of the ocean from the sandy beaches, to the light turquoise waters. The whites are the caps of the waves coming into shore and the dark blues is what it is... the deep blue ocean. I made this quilt, which is called a French Braid for him for his birthday last year. Not the best machine quilter, I sent it to a very good friend of mine Thearica and not only did she do the most incredible, beautiful, awesome quilting ever , she asked me to write a love note to Rob about our life together and she stitched it all around the border that surrounds the braids. There are no words that will ever express the gratitude I have for her for bringing my quilt to life. Thank you "Q" from the bottom of my heart.